In one or more of my blogs at some point, I had written about murderabilia, the collection of items associated with murder. Somehow the folks at New Yorkers for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, of which I am a member, saw the pieces and decided to interview me, much to my surprise. Well, the Winter 2012 NYADP Journal [PDF] is out and I’m in there on page 10 (PDF page 12), where I talk about my anti-death penalty journey. Check out also the journal homepage.
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As you may know, records from the 1940 Census are being released on April 2. But accessing them in a useful way may be difficult unless you know street addresses of the folks you’re looking for; it’ll take private companies such as Ancestry.com to transcribe the records into their database. The New York Public Library is making it easier for folks who had relatives in New York City in 1940; this is quite exciting to me.
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On the other hand, I’m totally weirded out. I’m my office’s representative to the New York State Data Center program. I discovered that the head of the program, who I’ve known for over a dozen years, had been arrested this week on child pornography charges. Once someone had sent me the news item, I forwarded it to others on the State Data Center listserv, who were universally stunned; at least one person thought I was perpetrating a bad joke. Of course, one is innocent until proven guilty in American jurisprudence, but the arrest is not only shocking, but a major blow to the program in the near term. I spent the better part of Friday afternoon talking about the ramifications of this.
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That’s really all I’ve got today. since I’ve written blogposts for the next four days, more content is guaranteed, or double your money back.